Nowadays, machines or systems for preparing nutritional beverages by mixing nutritional ingredients with liquid, usually water, are frequently used for in-home and out-of-home applications and should develop further for feeding patients in hospitals or clinics.
When preparing certain beverages for more fragile persons such as infants, toddlers, patients or seniors, it is important to ensure that the liquid to mix with the product ingredients and supplied by the machine is safe on a microbiological point of view, each time the machine is used. Liquid can contain undesired contaminants such as micro-organisms or viruses for example. These undesired contaminants should be removed or neutralized from the liquid before the liquid is mixed with the nutritional ingredients contained in the package.
A particular problem can be called the “last mile”. The “last mile” is actually a part of the system between the sanitizing area in the machine and the mixing or reconstitution point in the package that may not be properly decontaminated or sanitized. Such a portion can be a more or less small portion of surface, a conduit, a needle and the like.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,118,933 relates to an apparatus or method for preparing infant formula from powder with dispensing and filtering means. The apparatus comprises a reservoir for holding a supply of water, a heating element for heating well in advance water at a temperature suitable for being safely fed to a baby, a baby bottle positioned for receiving water dispensed from the reservoir through a spigot and a supply of powdered formula for immediately mixing with water dispensed from the reservoir through the spigot. The apparatus further comprises means for disinfecting including a ultra-violet (UV) lamp disposed within the reservoir or means for filtering the bacteria from the water within the flow path between the pump and the spigot. Such system is not very convenient as it requires the user to dose the right amount of powder in the baby bottle but more importantly, it is not so safe because the spigot itself may be contaminated and vehicle contaminants in the water passing there-through.
EP2046398 relates to a dispenser for preparing a nutritional composition comprising a reservoir, water heating means and water discharge means wherein a bacterial filter is provided between the water heating means and the water discharge means such that heated water passes the filter prior to discharge from the dispenser. A steam generator is further provided such that the interior of the water discharge means and/or filter surface may be cleaned by the passage of steam during each cycle.
EP2134222 relates to an apparatus for producing a drink, for example milk, configured to prepare the drink concentrate by mixing the amount of formula (P) necessary for the total amount of drink in a certain amount of hot liquid having a temperature in the range of 60-80° C., and to add the right amount of liquid of a certain low temperature to the concentrate in order to reach the end volume of the drink at safe drinking temperature. The apparatus further comprises a radiation system comprising an UV-lamp and a UV-transparent tube such that during operation the tube contains the lamp flowing around, or the liquid flows through a tube with the UV-radiation coming from the outside.
WO 2009/027131 relates to a dispensing device for preparing and dispensing nutritional composition from a capsule containing nutritional ingredients comprising a water circuit, a water heater, an injection head comprising intruding part for injecting water in the capsule comprising the ingredients; a capsule holder for holding the capsule during injection of water in the capsule, wherein it comprises cleaning and/or sanitizing means arranged to inject a cleaning agent in at least a portion of the water circuit and through the injection intruding part, and collecting means which can be associated in engagement with the injection head for enabling the collecting means to collect and discard the cleaning agent after it has passed through the injection intruding part.
WO2009/092629 relates to a capsule for nutritional beverage with an integrated antimicrobial filter.
EP2236437 relates to a capsule for a nutritional beverage with an antimicrobial filter and furthermore a flow collection member placed downstream of the filter to collect the filtered liquid and for producing a jet of liquid at high velocity in the compartment containing the ingredients.
WO2010/128028, WO2010/128031, WO2010/128051 relate to a capsule with an integrated filter unit further comprising an air inlet and conduit for enabling residual liquid to be removed from the capsule to ensure emptying of the capsule and a full dispensed feed.
The problem of the capsules with integrated filter lies in the complexity of the capsule and the filter material cost and production cost which are very high.
Therefore, there is a need for an apparatus that has a simpler, lower cost package but remains safe for preparing a beverage, in particular, by solving the “last mile” issue and having, each time a beverage is prepared, only cleansed liquid supplied to the package.